


Mistaken for Love

by spectacledotter



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Angst and Feels, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, One Very Bad Pun, Vignette, gay ninjas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-02
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-12 15:13:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13549968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spectacledotter/pseuds/spectacledotter
Summary: Kayn's welcome home does not go as he expected. Zed is furious, Shen is disappointed, and Rhaast is cheerfully making everything worse. Three scenes from a very bad day.





	Mistaken for Love

“Master,” says Kayn, laying the scythe on the floor before him, “I have brought you the Blade of Millennia.”

“Rise, Shieda Kayn,” says Zed, stepping forward. Kayn rises, a broad smile on his face, ready for the praise he deserves. Zed barely glances at the scythe on the ground before he strikes Kayn across the face with an armored fist, seizing his braid in the other hand and forcing him to the ground, a foot on the back of Kayn’s neck. “Idiot,” he hisses, “did I not tell you to destroy it?"

"Why,” chokes out Kayn, defiant as ever, “would I destroy what I can control? You taught me that.”

Zed’s blades extend, the edge just barely touching Kayn’s cheek, and he snarls down at the young man beneath him. Kayn has him there and he knows it. It’s why a Noxian-born–his blood reeking with Noxian magic–lives in the Temple. It’s why Kayn is even alive.

And Kayn knows this, too.

A scraping noise distracts him; the scythe is rising from the ground, positioning itself just behind Zed, ready to strike in defence of its wielder. Kayn raises his hand to stop it, the sleeve falling away to show the corruption already settling in. “No,” he says, “leave us to it."

The scythe’s eye is piercing, but it returns to his side. Zed finally lets him sit up, and his fingers close around the scythe’s haft immediately. It was a habit when he was a boy, to grasp and play with his weapons, the way other children would use toys for comfort. Zed broke him of it by forcing him to fight without, and from there, Kayn had mastered everything he was given.

Now here he is, gripping this weapon like he’s eight years old again. Still a boy.

"Master,” says Kayn, “let me use this weapon for the Order. I can control it. I will master it. I will visit upon Noxus a fury like they’ve never seen! With–"

"Enough,” Zed cuts him off brusquely. “What happened to Nakuri?"

Kayn’s surprise lasts only a moment, but it’s long enough for Zed to see–he didn’t realize Nakuri had been sent to ensure the weapon was destroyed. "Fell in battle against the Noxians,” he says, the lie well practiced.

Zed fixes him with a stare just long enough to make him squirm, then relents. “I will ensure his body is recovered. Noxus will not keep him.”

He steps forward and tears the sleeve from Kayn’s left arm, revealing the blackened skin and chitinous growth, not hiding the sneer of disgust on his face. “Prove to me you can control that thing, Kayn,” he says, turning away. “The moment you slip, if I ever sense your weakness …. I will kill you.”

“I will not fail you, Master,” says Kayn fervently.

“You already have,” says Zed. “You are dismissed."

* * *

 

**_That_  was your master?** Rhaast is laughing in his mind.  **You should have let me kill him.**

"Zed raised me from nothing into the perfect weapon,” Kayn snaps at the scythe. “He deserves your respect."

**You are not the perfect weapon. _I_ am. You come close… but you aren’t me. **

He pulls Rhaast up to look the scythe in the eye. "I am the weapon,” he says firmly. “You are the tool."

**Lies soothe the mind, don’t they? You tell yourself so many.**

"You don’t know what you’re talking about."

**The lie that Zed is a father to you… that he looks on you as an heir, a son….**

"You know  _nothing_  about him!"

**Mortal minds are simple things. I saw his as you spoke.**

Rhaast is taking too much pleasure in this. Kayn can feel the darkin’s glee.  **He fears your growing power. Your taste for death, your talent for the shadow… he fears the _Noxian_  magic in your blood, the magic he intended to use against them. You were nothing more than a trophy–the Noxian child forged into a soldier against their own forces.**

"Shut up!"

**But you became more than he could control–so he sent you for me, to _die_ in the attempt to destroy me, and a spy to ensure you succeeded. At both. You want the tool, Kayn? I am not it. **

"ENOUGH!” Kayn flings the scythe away from him, Rhaast’s cruel laughter ringing in his head as it sinks blade-first into the earth. "How DARE you?! You have no idea what my life was like before Zed found me!“

 **You mean with Captain Sciros?** taunts Rhaast.

"You do not get to use my memories against me.”

**Your memories are my memories now, Kayn. We are bound.**

“Yet you don’t give me the same privilege."

**And that should tell you who really has the power here.  
**

Tendrils of shadow coil around the scythe and pull it to Kayn’s hand. He feels better holding it, even as much as he wishes he could punch Rhaast in the face.

 **Zed does not deserve you,**  says Rhaast.

"Appealing to my vanity now? Cute."

 **No, not really… merely stating the obvious. Zed does not understand how fortunate he is to have such an obsequious pupil in you. He is right to fear your potential. He is outmatched. Were you ever to turn on him… and you should… he would be nothing. Nothing,**  and he laughs, **but a shadow.**

"I owe him everything. You are a farm implement with delusions of grandeur.”

**You know I’m right, though. Zed’s order shackles you! I offer freedom.**

Kayn leans against the temple wall, staring up at the darkening sky. His face still aches where Zed struck him, maybe even leaving a mark this time. He has a few already. Nothing has gone as he imagined. He wants to be furious with Zed, but instead he feels nothing but hollow.

**You call him father in your mind. Why?**

“I had no one else,” murmurs Kayn. “Only death awaited me.”

In the depths of his mind, he feels Rhaast smile.  **It still does.**

* * *

 

As the last faint wisps of twilight dim, Kayn feels the tingle of the island’s magic shifting and reorienting around a new presence, and he knows well what that means. Shen is here.

He pulls his long-sleeved jacket over his bare chest, grabs Rhaast, and vanishes into the shadows, moving quickly from the temple grounds into the surrounding forest without drawing attention from any acolytes still awake. None have the mastery of shadow he does.

Rhaast is curious, but he mercifully says nothing. Kayn hasn’t the patience to explain the arrangement with Shen, not tonight. Shen does have perfect timing, however–tonight of all nights, Kayn desperately needs to blow off steam.

Their meeting place is a clearing in the forest where water cascades over the mountain into the river–the Twilight Falls. True to name, the Eye of Twilight waits there, sitting cross-legged on the ground with his eyes closed. Shen wears the blue uniform of the Kinkou, the only marker of his rank as leader the plated band around his head. His face is covered but for his eyes, and even from the shadow of a tree across the clearing, Kayn sees the dark circles have only grown.

Shen’s duty takes a toll on him. That is, after all, why he’s here.

“Then I was right,” he says, not opening his eyes as Kayn steps from the shadow, Rhaast in hand. “You took the weapon for yourself.”

“I won’t be lectured by you and Zed in the same day,” says Kayn irritably. He doesn’t bother asking how Shen knew; the Eye of Twilight sees far and wide. Besides, Zed might well have  _told_  him, if that truce of theirs is still holding.

“The Blade of Millennia has an intelligence of its own, malevolent and cunning.” Shen opens his eyes, revealing the blue glow Kayn has never seen fade. It’s rumoured his own eyes were taken in an ancient ritual, replaced with eyes of pure magic, and this is how he gained his title.

“It can be controlled,” says Kayn. “It can be mastered, and I will master it.”

“You’ve always been arrogant,” sighs Shen as he rises, carefully brushing dirt from his uniform.

“I will  _prove_  it! To you, Zed, the damned Grand General of Noxus himself if I have to! Perhaps I only seem overly confident because no one  _else_  has any confidence in me,” spits Kayn, all his anger and frustration and resentment bubbling up in him like a poisoned wound.

Shen runs a gloved hand from Kayn’s ear, down his neck, to the collar of the jacket, pulling it down and away to reveal his blackened and corrupted left arm. “I worry about how far you will go to do so,” he says in a gentle tone.

“As far as I have to,” says Kayn quietly. It’s awful how much his body is crying for that touch again, how much that soft voice cut straight to his heart and made him regret all his venom. He swore to himself when they started this that it had no meaning, that it was an arrangement of convenience for both of them, but there is a clawing desire inside that is betraying his vow.

Shen sighs and shakes his head, turning away. “Then for your sake, I hope you’re right.”

“If you’re done judging me,” Kayn grumbles, “are you here for our arrangement? Because if you’re not, I have better ways to spend my time.”

He begins to walk away, and just as expected, Shen grabs his arm and pulls him back. “I never said that.”

Kayn gives him a cocky grin that hides inner turmoil from them both. “Why, Shen, if I didn’t know better, I might say you missed me.”

“You were gone slightly longer than I anticipated,” says Shen, which is as good as affirmation.

Kayn pulls the mask from his face, revealing an older, tired man, his hair greying at the temples and in his carefully trimmed beard. He caresses Shen’s face with his left hand unthinkingly–it is, after all, his dominant hand–and Shen doesn’t flinch at the touch. Instead, his own fingers fork into Kayn’s hair, pulling him closer until finally their lips meet.

It means nothing, Kayn reminds himself. It’s an arrangement of convenience, for them to release the urges of mortality. For Shen, this is of key importance; for Kayn, it’s just fun. He knows Shen only accepts him as a lover because he’s eager and available, and that some small part of Shen takes pleasure in fucking Zed’s star pupil right under his nose. But Shen’s lips on his neck and hands on his stomach, his throaty groans as Kayn rides him, the wet heat of Shen’s mouth both on Kayn’s own and lower down–it means enough. It means passion and pleasure and being intensely, aggressively desired, and deep inside him, part of Kayn knows he will know this no other way.

Kayn is lying on the grass, an arm flung over his face as he catches his breath, when Rhaast suddenly speaks in his mind.  **Your lover intends to kill you.**

Shen’s hand has closed over the hilt of his sword; Kayn sees it through Rhaast’s eye. He gathers the shadows to him as subtly as he can, ready to defend himself. This time, he won’t strike first–he owes Shen that much. But Shen releases his sword and lies back, staring up at the star-covered sky. Kayn releases the breath he hadn’t quite realized he’d been holding and rolls onto his side, watching him.

 **I wonder if that was mercy or fear,**  says Rhaast.

Shen kisses him deeply before he leaves, a lingering kiss that leaves Kayn breathless, and reminds him, as always, to take care of himself. Kayn touches his lips when the magic fades and Shen is gone, wondering at the strangely different feel of it. Was he imagining the emotion behind it?

 **He doesn’t deserve you, either,**  Rhaast says when Kayn picks up the scythe.

“Maybe so,” says Kayn, “but he’s what I have.”

**You need better standards for yourself.**

Kayn glances back at the Twilight Falls for a long moment before finally stepping back into the shadows of the forest. Whatever stayed Shen’s hand–mercy, fear, or something else–it fills Kayn with a feeling he can barely understand, let alone describe. The Eye of Twilight, made to enforce perfect balance, the neutral arbiter of justice with an objective gaze, could not kill him.

Perhaps it meant nothing to Shen. Perhaps nothing they do ever does.

But it means everything to Kayn.


End file.
